My Air Purifier just got a second motor

I could not just wait for the air to come into my air purifier just to be cleaned. I needed a way to somehow force the surrounding air to be pushed inside it to be cleaned. So the only option I had in mind is to add a second motor to suck in the air. And here it is:

With this design however, my air purifier is no longer cheap because the materials I used for the casing has been doubled, 1 motor and 2 extra brackets plus the top cover not to mention, I already use 100% activated carbon because it is really 5x more efficient than ordinary charcoal.

Here is the actual result of my design:

I also noticed that the air being sucked in may not penetrate the inner portion of the activated carbon inside the eco bag, so I customized the bag itself to have a hole at the center located in front of the motor that sucks in the air. Which is like the one shown below:

So in this case, the air will not just go around the bag but will be pushed inwards at the center of the bag living no choice but the air will be pushed right into the activated carbon.

And here is the actual device itself:

My testing shows that as I blow smoke directly into it, 90% of the smoke gets sucked in immediately which is an indication that air cleaning is very efficient.

Future plans:
I am thinking of adding another chamber as the final stage air cleaning but that depends on the performance of the device, for now, I am so happy with the result because it is very efficient.

Adding Air Filter to my Air Purifier Project

I was too busy this weekend to pay attention to my supposed Wall Décor Weekend Project, and instead, my attention is focused on adding an air filter to my air purifier diy.

I have spent several days searching for a reliable seller of air filters and inquired at leading industrial suppliers, but as it turned out, these industrial suppliers are also manufacturers of industrial grade air filters so they snub small time buyers like me. But assuming they grant my wish to buy small piece of their product, still they insist to custom build the air filter with frames and their minimum thickness is about 1" which is too much for a small air purifier like what I did. But yes, I really like the HEPA air filter they are selling because it is the world's most efficient air filter.

I haven't gave up on them yet, coz I'm so crazy about their HEPA air filter, but it is nice to have, but with the kind of supplier, well, oh well, I am still hoping that I could find one and instead I ended up with air condition air filter. It is a 3M brand called "Filtrete" .

One particular feature of this product is it cleans the air and very efficiently because it used electrostatic fibers which act like magnets to trap dust, bacteria, dust mite, and many harmful dust particles. Here's the actual air filter:

The package recommend just one layer but I used 2 layers. SO that makes 4 layers of air filters inside my air purifier. Why 4 layers?

4 layers because I used eco bag to wrap the charcoals and activated carbon so that makes it 2, then I added 2 layers of Filtrete so that makes it 4:

My Next Weekend Project: Wall Decor

I am not really an art lover, but somehow each time I walk into a shop, the first things that catch my attention are the things I see on the wall, somehow those objects tells more of the place and how different the shop is and gives the customer a feeling of confidence that they came to the right place and would entice them to buy. In the house, usually objects on the wall are usually about the object that may tell something about the personality of the person living in it. But this time, I have chosen this object:

For me, this exotic design gives a relaxing feeling, it is usually found in Budhist temple where it is so quiet and peaceful. It is not about my personality, it is how I want the place should be.

I will using a 12mm thick MDF which is 425mm by 425mm.

My Idea of a functioning IOT(internet of things) enabled Fridge

As I was browsing my own blog for reading pleasure, it came to my attention the article I wrote in April, 2015, Using Ibeacons with Internet of Things(IoT) Devices and I was challenged at how will ever a truly Iot enabled fridge be? What it can do or what it is capable of doing?

SAP a leading enterprise solution provider has a portfolio of products for IoT solutions that will enable business owners to track all of their equipments in real time and of course this include the cold storage equipment for beverages, but I still don't get it how will the machine be able to track of the inventory(with the exceptions of the vending machine)?

Like I said in my previous article, if I would analyze it, every household will be just like what enterprises do and with current technologies, they can enter into a contract with their suppliers  to supply them with their grocery items, things that they would normally buy, like milk, mineral water, fruit juices, eggs, butter, sodas, beers, and so on.

Probably, home equipments must be like vendo machines, each time you need a product, you just push a button, and it goes out and if it nears depletion, the machine will automatically send notification to the supplier and will immediately replenish the stock. If you feel like cooking, you select from available dishes, or you will have to schedule that in the morning you like to grill hotdog, and you want to roast ribs in the evening. So your suppliers can deliver in advance the ingredients you will need. In other words, you will create a list of dishes that you want cook for the upcoming week. This dishes are already on the items in the software, so all ingredients are stored in the system.

With this arrangements, people will not have enough reason to go out all the time and spend more time at home and enjoy quality time with the family.

My Week End Project: Air Purifier

It has been my problem living in a house where houses are closed together. Usually, I wake up in the morning because of the smell from my neighbors while they cook food. The smell usually are fried tuyo or any fried fish, sometimes they cook adobo or they grill meat or fish in front of their houses not to mention those cars they usually park and occupy most of the common areas.

So I came up with the idea that I should just close the windows all the time and open a small area which will let cold air come in and assemble my own air purifier. An air purifier usually cost around 25,000 pesos, there are smaller that cost around 5000 pesos but not very effective. By the way, the apartment I am currently renting has this feature that if all windows are closed, the place is almost copletely isolated from the outside which is very nice.

The secrets of air purification is usually the the device suck in air and let it pass through a channel of activated carbon. Activated carbon is a treated charcoal but it is still basically a charcoal. If it is activated, it just means, it just 20% more effective in absorbing odor and carbon dioxide/carbon monoxide. So I will just have to use ordinary charcoal to purify the air and remove common air pollutants.

But I need a proof of concept first to check if it is effective so I made a simple air purifier below:

And I have been using it for 2 weeks now and I must say, it is working, I can sleep without worrying that early in the morning, I will wake up with that usual terrible smell and the air smells like gasoline.

Tomorrow, I will start to make the air purifier device more presentable and I plan to use acrylic and  my design in sketchup is finish which will be like below:

This is not yet final, I am stil thinking of adding another fan on the side to suck in air. The air purifier is 200mm cube so that should be big enough to hold a lot of charcoal.

I am also thinking of buying activated carbon, some petshops sell activated carbon at a cheaper price so that the device will have some activated carbon content.

And lastly, I will be using the Big Carver CNC-5090 to cut the acrylic. Budget for this project is under 2500 pesos.

Project Update:
I was able to successfully finish my project. I used acryllic that I was not able to use for my other other projects, actually, these are excess from the CNC controller I assembled for the CNC 5090.

It turned to be a good and functioning design, here is the finish product:

And here's how it compares to my prototype:

I used electrical tape to seal the box so that I can easily replace the charcoal every 2 to 3 months. I also found cheap activated carbon which is used as water purifier. I bought the small one which cost 385 pesos and mixed it with ordinary charcoal, I intend to replace the content after 2 months with more activated carbon content and will probably use the charcoal usually used in Jacuzzis, because those charcoals are from pine trees and eucalyptus trees. These charcoals smells good and have therapeutic effects.